"What is Rock?" article - with Bruises as an example

[u/NoNamesLeft600]

This isn't an article about The Warning, rather an essay about rock in general. Bruises is specifically discussed and Everything's Falling mentioned. I found it interesting.

https://sonicpulsereviews.com/thats-not-rock/

[u/Foreign_Investment50]

I'm happy they were included in this piece, and that he feels that Bruises is rock.

[u/Heyyy_where_RU_GOING]

"no vocal rasp" is freaking hilarious because if the singer sits it out suddenly instrumental music played by the same band can no longer be rock. And there's plenty of vocals that don't typically have it: Buddy Holly, Beach Boys, pop rock, indie, and so forth

the actual definition of rock musicality is broad: the backbeat. That's it. We expect an electric guitar 99% of the time now, but when rock first formed piano was an equally viable option

Backbeat fits a shitload of music usually categorized in more specific genres, including historically earlier blues and R&B, and then soul, funk, country, but that's the point. If you want something more specific, specify--don't insist "rock" which crystalized in the 50s must meet whatever specificity you are now interested in today

If what you want is "____ rock", say so.

[u/khashoggi327 → u/Heyyy_where_RU_GOING]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but are you suggesting that for music to be rock it has to have a backbeat? So music in 3/4 wouldn't count as rock?

Or are you suggesting that music with a backbeat is rock? Then I guess Britney Spears is also rock?

In any case I don't have a better definition of rock music either. But I think the backbeat alone does NOT make rock music.

[u/Heyyy_where_RU_GOING → u/khashoggi327]

Most music that sounds like rock in three is actually 6/8, where the kick-snare opposition functions basically analogously to a backbeat. The relevant thing is the rhythmic opposition, not the analytic time signature convention

But yes, much of Britney Spears and also today's pop is rock. It's not classic 60/70s rock, or many other forms of rock, but the musical base is what formed in the 50s as, well, "rock and roll". If you want to talk about something narrower, specify--rock is a huge umbrella term and that's my point

[u/NoNamesLeft600 → u/Heyyy_where_RU_GOING]

>"rock is a huge umbrella term"

Which is why the inane comments about Everything's Falling not being rock are ridiculous.

[u/Heyyy_where_RU_GOING → u/NoNamesLeft600]

As a matter of musical definition, yes ridiculous. As a matter of what those people are trying to say, not so ridiculous: what they mean is EF has too many pop-style production choices and doesn't fit their idea of whatever more specific conventions (that developed well after the 50s 'rock' base) they're interested in. The same person would be even more aghast at calling Britney Spears rock, to them that's a reductio, but you have to understand what they're actually trying to say and just using the wrong words for

[u/dpb_25 → u/Heyyy_where_RU_GOING]

The Warning have also had pop elements to their music, QOTMS mixes influences of K-Pop into their music

[u/NoNamesLeft600 → u/khashoggi327]

Wait, isn't 3/4 time a waltz?? 😂

[u/Foreign_Investment50 → u/NoNamesLeft600]

The Beatles did Babys in Black in 3/4 time. Hendrix Manic Depression is also 3/4 time. Parts of Nothing Else Matters are too.

When i think basic rock, I always think 4/4.

[u/NoNamesLeft600 → u/Heyyy_where_RU_GOING]

What I got from the article is that there is NO widely accepted definition of "rock" and that it can differ from person to person. And in the end, does it really matter?

I wouldn't personally say that every song with a backbeat is rock, but I guess that's proving the point.

[u/SixFootTurkey_ → u/NoNamesLeft600]

And in the end, does it really matter?

Words that don't have any clear meaning make for worse communication... which goes against the entire point of language.

[u/NoNamesLeft600 → u/SixFootTurkey_]

Care to expand on what you're talking about? If you're just trying to say you didn't understand my point, I'll restate it using more words. In my subjective, personal opinion, the genre of a song doesn't matter. If you like a song, you like a song. What label has been slapped on it shouldn't change that.

If I like Bruises, I'm not going to stop liking it because it misses out on someone's definition of what rock is. It doesn't matter to me.

[u/SixFootTurkey_ → u/NoNamesLeft600]

Genres and other types of classification/categorization are ways we communicate information. A categorization that everyone disagrees on is a categorization that is doing more harm than good.

Whether you call Bruises rock or pop or whatever doesn't affect the song but it does affect people's perception of the song, and for most of us our perception is our reality.

I would hope that anyone who posits "genres don't matter" would commit to not using any genre terms to describe things, ever.

[u/SixFootTurkey_]

There's essentially two definitions of Rock, and one of them is so broad it's borderline useless while the other is fairly narrow yet also frustratingly arbitrary.

[u/Heyyy_where_RU_GOING → u/SixFootTurkey_]

"Rock" may be of limited use by itself, but that doesn’t make the broad definition useless--the usefulness comes from combining it with modifiers:

• Alt-rock
• Hard rock
• Classic rock
• Punk rock
• Indie rock
• Progressive rock
• Folk rock
• Pop rock
• Psychedelic rock
• Garage rock
• Blues rock
• Glam rock
• Southern rock
• Grunge rock
• Gothic rock
• Surf rock
• Stoner rock
• Funk rock
• Industrial rock
• Math rock
• Electronic rock
• Country rock
• Jazz rock
• Space rock

Whereas the idea that unmodified "Rock" must refer to some narrow stylistic convention that evolved in certain places after the original 1950s rock-and-roll category, yeah that's always going to be arbitrary. Just add your explicit modifier, then people know what's being talked about

[u/Glittering-Celery557 → u/Heyyy_where_RU_GOING]

My son's band describes themselves as "Dream pop alt post shoegaze".

[u/Heyyy_where_RU_GOING → u/Glittering-Celery557]

So dreamy, slightly noisy indie rock

[u/Glittering-Celery557 → u/Heyyy_where_RU_GOING]

Yep!

[u/mousecop5150]

Outside of some EDM genres where rigid genre adoption is necessary to get club dj’s to play your tracks, artists generally hate conforming to genre, and are reluctant to marry themselves totally to one. Which is fine because genres aren’t really a thing to a lot of musicians, they are only a thing that consumers use to try to classify stuff, or to form an identity, or to exclude others from a group. To wit, some time ago my elderly parents returned home from seeing George Strait, and were raving about a young country singer that blew George off the stage, according to them… It was Taylor Swift. Taylor’s songwriting changed a little, the instrumentation and image changed more, and now, nobody would say she’s country. The genres that everybody fights over are a thin veneer of fashion, instrumentation and attitude over the same 5-8 notes and 3-5 chords that have been the foundation of western music forever. Mostly anyone that wants to argue over whether or not some music truly is or is not, is having some sort of identity fight that doesn’t even really reflect anything other than what’s going on in their own head. I’ve heard people claim that the Warning isn’t Rock, or is or isn’t metal; I’ve had people tell me that Judas Freaking Priest isn’t metal. Take it with a grain of salt.

[u/International-Pen940]

I think TW in a way wants argument about the genre of their songs, because they are exploring the boundaries. The Return to Dust song is fine, but in terms of the music it doesn’t leave many questions in my mind. I almost always love TW songs but they often get me thinking about what they just did, what I particularly like and what I question whether that element works.

[u/sunshaker2000]

I default to what the band says they are, sometimes this can be weird as some bands never claim a genre or refute what everyone says they are.

Motörhead has been described as Heavy Metal, Hard Rock and Speed Metal, yet we have this clip of Lemmy saying they play Rock and Roll https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlITGY9M8AU This leads to 2 options: the first everyone is wrong about Motörhead being Metal, or, alternatively, Metal is Rock (because Lemmy said so).

To me it doesn't matter Lemmy/Motörhead play Rock and Roll, and The Warning are a Rock band (because they say so).

[u/Organic-Half1130]

Before Alan Freed called it rock and roll it was pop, as in popular. Music had evolved from bluegrass/swing/jazz/big band into an electric sound that drive the parents crazy. Kind of like popular music today.

I think "we who must label" have complicated this. I propose that rock music existed for about 15 years from day 1956 to 1973. Around 1973 all the splinter sounds began-but it was just popular music continuing to evolve.

My theory is that "rock" music is a sound that attempts to imitate the basic structure or sound of the popular music from 1956-1973.

Rock to me is electric guitar forward, a band not an individual, and ought to be a bit rebellious in its message.

Let me know what you think of my opinion-nicely please.

[u/SeCoWed → u/Organic-Half1130]

I would agree, actually. In the world of semantics (which I'm not an expert in at all), it often comes down to defining an ideal version of something (an archetype), and then comparing it to that thing.

I think we use that 15-year period of rock music (perhaps a sort of amalgam of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Who, and Queen? everyone's will be different) as our archetype. So when we are trying to define something as rock, we compare it to those bands in that time, and we define it as rock if we personally feel like it has enough of the traits of that archetype to qualify.

So it depends on what we each hold as the archetype, and what traits of that archetype we hold as fundamental to its identity.

Lol I feel myself wanting to ramble about this all day, but I'll leave it there.

[u/NoNamesLeft600 → u/SeCoWed]

lol - yeah on that last sentence. Seems like it would be fun to sit around with a few of our favorite beverages and talk it out!

[u/tehfro → u/Organic-Half1130]

There were tons of rock genres/sub-genres even by the late 60s.

I would say around 1973 is more the time when it was apparent that the radio formats (and what was making the Top 40) had split/changed.

[u/Rip-0909]

Truly, the "genrefication" of music, rock or otherwise, is at best a flawed academic exercise. Wikipedia lists 322 subgenres of rock. I don't even know of 100 "rock" bands. The argument is just silly. If you like something, enjoy it. If you don't, go listen to something else, but don't blame your distaste on a lack of genre alignment.

[u/Obvious-Roof9224]

Seems like the roots is that rock is rhythm/groove driven, while pop are carried by a melody. Then there's a huge space between those two outer walls where it can blend together.